Brethren, let's be turning to
1 Samuel chapter 15. In this chapter, I'm reminded of
the preciousness of the gospel because it declares the hope
of sinners. It declares the salvation that
God has freely provided for sinners in his son. And this Word, which
is of the Lord, is appointed for our deliverance. God has
given it to us to deliver us from the wrath of God, which
is coming upon the disobedient, upon the wicked of this world. The Hebrew writer said in Hebrews
2 verse 1, Therefore we ought to give the more earnest to heed
the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let
them slip. The Lord is teaching us that
it's not a one-time thing that we hear his word, but that we
that are called of the Lord Jesus Christ continually come. In the
same way that we continually come to be fed at our tables
at home, well, we come here to be fed the bread of heaven, the
Lord Jesus Christ. He's our spiritual food. He is our drink. He is our sustainer
and our strength and our all. Now, Samuel, in this chapter
here, he's a man sent of God. And he's sent to minister the
gospel to Saul. The Lord sends him numerous times
up till now and in this chapter to minister the gospel to Saul. That's the picture that's being
here. He's telling him the word of God. That's why they get together. That's why when Saul goes to
Gilgal, He's looking to hear what Samuel has to say from the
Lord. That's why they go there. And
so he's ministering that word of God, the good word of God.
And Saul here is a testament to the weakness and to the folly
of this flesh right here. Saul is a testimony of what we
are by nature in this flesh. And the Lord shows us this, that
we would cry out to the Lord for mercy, that we would ask
God for mercy and grace, and to help us to hear his word,
because Saul didn't. Saul wouldn't hear the word of
God. Saul couldn't hear the word of
God. In this chapter, you'll notice
that Samuel emphasizes obeying the voice and the word of God. He says it multiple times. And
this, him directing our thoughts and our hearts to the voice of
God, to the word of God, it's a type, it's a picture that speaks
to us today under the grace of God to look to Christ, to tell
us you need Christ, hear Him, this is my salvation, my son
here, hear Him, obey my voice, which is faith in Christ, believe
in Christ. And Christ is the word of God. He's the good word of God. He is the gospel of God. It's God's revelation of his
good word to us in delivering us from the wrath that we deserve
and delivering us from the hand of justice that We were rightly
taken by because of our sins in Adam and what we do. And so this word, this gospel
word is appointed by God and he gives it to his ministers
like Samuel and we're to declare this word to direct men's hearts,
to direct men's attention, to direct men toward the Lord Jesus
Christ. I just remembered in Luke chapter
4, when Christ preached grace at Nazareth, when he was there
at Nazareth in the beginning of his ministry, when he closed
that book, when he finished reading from Isaiah chapter 61, verses
one through three, when he finished that, it says, all eyes were
fastened on him. And that's what we do in the
preaching of the gospel. When we preach the gospel, all
the eyes of the people are fastened on the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
how it's supposed to be. That's how it's supposed to be.
And so that's what the Lord sends us to do. And it's only in obedience
to Christ through faith, that's how we obey the commandment of
God. And I know many people, when
they come here and they look at this, they immediately go
to the law. Now, we're to immediately go
to Christ. That's what the Lord is revealing to his people. To
obey God is to believe the one whom he has sent, the Lord Jesus
Christ, for the salvation of our souls. So let's begin in
verse 1. Samuel also said unto Saul, The
Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over
Israel. Now therefore hearken thou unto
the voice of the words of the Lord. And then the Lord tells
Saul, this is what you're going to do, Saul. Verse 2, Thus saith
the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel. how he laid weight for him in
the way when he came up from Egypt. Now let me just establish
this here for you now. When you see Amalek and what
the Lord tells him to do to Amalek, Amalek is a picture of the trouble believers receive
when they are, that which comes against them when we are delivered
out of the bondage, out of that spiritual bondage, which is pictured
in Egypt and Israel coming out of Egypt. They were delivered
from that Egyptian darkness and from that Egyptian bondage, that
Egyptian slavery, which is what we are in by nature. We're in
bondage by nature to sin, to darkness, to death, And they
came up out of Egypt, and it was right after the waters of
Meribah where the people complained to Moses saying, give us something
to drink. We're going to die here of thirst. Give us something
to drink. And they tried it with Moses, but the Lord was gracious.
Moses went and prayed, and the Lord was gracious and said, go
to Mount Horeb and smite the rock. I'll stand there before
you. You smite the rock, and I'll give them water. And he
did. I mean, that's a wonderful miracle. And it's a picture of
Christ who gives us the waters of life, the fountain of life.
He himself is the fountain of life. And so right after that,
in Exodus 17, 8, it says, then came Amalek. Right after that,
then came Amalek and fought with Israel in Rephidim. And so, this
is a picture, when you're looking at Amalek, this is a picture
of that trouble that comes and proves what God has done in delivering
you. It's a trial. It's a temptation,
and it's what the Lord uses to prove his people. Now, verse
3, Go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and
spare them not. But slay both man and woman,
infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. So, what he's
saying there is, the command of the Lord's Word is, the way
that Amalek, this trouble is going to be defeated, is in obedience
to God's command. And that's why I tell you, this
is a picture of trouble, and this Word, this command, is turning
us to Christ. This is how you're going to overcome
that which comes against you to prove that work of God, those
manifold temptations, those trials and tribulations, those afflictions
and persecutions, those difficulties and hardships, that's how you
overcome them all. In Christ. Believe in Christ. Look unto Him. However, this
is what Saul actually does in verse nine. But Saul and the
people spared Agag that's the king, and the best of the sheep,
and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was
good, and would not utterly destroy them. But everything that was
vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. It's a picture of what
they thought of the word of God. They exalted themselves above
God's command to them. They didn't listen to God's word. They improvised. And they did
what was right in their own eyes, according to their own judgment
and their own wisdom. And the Lord then says to Samuel
that night, I'm going to take the kingdom from Saul. In words
that we can understand, he said, it repenteth me that I've made
Saul king. Well, I mean, he gave Israel
that king in his anger. right, to teach them, to show
them. And so he said, I'm going to
give it to another because Saul's not the man that he pretends
to be. And Saul was in utter darkness, utter darkness to what
he had done. He didn't even know the sin that
he had committed. He thinks that he has done the
will of God. So look at verse 12. When Samuel
rose early to meet Saul in the morning, it was told Samuel,
saying, Saul came to Carmel. And behold, he set him up a place,
and has gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal.
And what this seems to mean is, what they did, they didn't have
newspapers back then, but it seems he set up a pillar to publish
this conquest that he had just done. He was excited about this.
He thought, I did good, and I'm going to let all the kingdom
know what I've just done in defeating Amalek. And then he went on down
to Gilgal. And Gilgal, as I said before,
that's like going to church today. That's where he would meet with
Samuel, and he expected Samuel would come in, and Samuel would
say, good job, son, and it would all be a good thing, and they'd
party and have a good time. Verse 13 and 14, And Samuel came
to Saul there in Gilgal, and Saul said unto him, Blessed be
thou of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord.
So you see, this man feels no shame. He thinks he did exactly
what God told him to do. And Samuel said, What meaneth
then this bleeding of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of
the oxen which I hear." If you've done the will of God, why do
I hear the sheep and the oxen which you were told to put to
death? And he's saying your wickedness
speaks for itself. In the voices of these sheep
and these oxen, you've not obeyed the Lord. What you're saying
and what you think you're saying here doesn't align with God's
word. It's two different things there.
And Romans 1, 22 and 23 says, professing themselves to be wise,
they became fools. And I thought of that because
this is man's wisdom. This is what man thinks he does
to save himself. and changed the glory of the
uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man,
and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things."
It's a description of idolaters. And that's what Saul is here. He thinks he's worshiping God,
and he's just entirely missing the mark, completely. He misses
the one thing needful. And so Samuel, as I said earlier,
he puts great emphasis on obeying God's voice. Remember in verse
one, hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord. In
verse 19, he said, wherefore then didst thou not obey the
voice of the Lord? Verse 22, hath the Lord as great
delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the
voice of the Lord? And then verse 23, for rebellion
is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity
and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the
word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. And so to not obey God entirely
is to reject God completely. It's just to depart from the
Lord completely. And if we don't obey Him perfectly,
in perfect righteousness, then we've disobeyed, we've broken
every commandment. We've offended holy God in every
way possible. What Saul ultimately did was
he obeyed the voice of man. He says, look at verse 24, and
Saul said unto Samuel, I have sinned for I have transgressed
the commandment of the Lord and thy words, because I feared the
people and obeyed their voice. And it just made me think that
if we're not obeying God's voice, we're obeying someone else's
voice. Not even our own, because we're in bondage. Man likes to
think of himself as being free and having free will and able
to do what he wants, but we're just listening to the voice of
another. If it's the Lord, then it's the Lord. But if it's not,
then it's the devil or some other person that's in bondage to the
devil. But we're slaves to sin. And so we're to listen, we're
to hear the voice of our God. Now, Saul didn't believe God.
All Saul seems to care about is the outward form of the things
that were going on. Samuel wasn't going to go with
Saul. He wasn't going to go with Saul.
He said, I'm not going to return with you, in verse 26. I'm not
going to return with you. And he told him, because you've
rejected the word of the Lord. And because of that, the Lord's
rejected thee from being king over Israel. But look down at
verse 30, 1 Samuel 1530. Then Saul said, I have sinned. Yet honor me now, I pray thee,
before the elders of my people, and before Israel, and turn again
with me that I may worship the Lord thy God." So he was far
more concerned with the outward appearance of things. He wanted
to look good in front of his peers, in front of his people,
in front of his elders there in Benjamin. And so this passage
teaches us, one of the things this passage teaches us is our
need for the grace of God to hear his word, because by nature
we're just like Saul. We don't hear, and we do our
own thing. And we're not gonna hear what
the Lord says except by his grace and mercy. And so everything
Saul heard and what he did, it's of the flesh. It was of the flesh,
and to the point he obeyed, it was of the flesh. He just did
what came easy for him to do, but it was void of the spirit
and void of truth. And this man, he suffered for
it. He was rejected of God, and what actually happened was he
never heard the gospel again. It says at the end of the chapter
there in verse 34 and 35, Samuel went to Ramah, and Saul went
up to his house to Gibeah of Saul. And Samuel came no more
to see Saul until the day of his death. Now there was some
interaction there a little bit later, I think, in chapter 19,
but not where Samuel came and gave Saul the word of the Lord. He never came and heard the gospel. He never preached the gospel
to him, and Saul never heard the gospel preached to him again
from Samuel. That was it. That was the last
time. And so God had sent Samuel to Saul many times to declare
that gospel, but Saul didn't hear it. And Saul was not a man
of faith. Saul was a man of flesh. His son Jonathan was a man of
faith. We see beautiful pictures of Christ. We see beautiful pictures
of the believer. But Saul was a man of flesh. And that's us by nature. We're men of flesh. And we need
the grace of God to deliver us from that death. And our Lord
speaks of those like Saul. It's in Matthew 7, 21. Not everyone
that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven. he that doeth the will of my
Father which is in heaven. And so what I want to show you
here is how that Saul was leaning on his wisdom and Saul was leaning
on was making his own righteousness, and Saul was sanctifying himself,
and Saul was working on his own redemption, and he did not hear
that God has provided all those things for his people in Christ. And I'm of course referring to
that scripture that Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians
1.30 when he said that of God are ye in Christ Jesus. Of God's
grace and of God's power through his eternal covenant established
for us in Christ by God are ye in Christ Jesus who of God is
made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption. God has done that for His people. And the Lord is the one who must
do the work. And it's a work of grace. And
it's a work by His Spirit, ministered to the hearts of His people.
Because that's what we need. We need God to do this. We need
our God to make us to lie down in green pastures, like we saw
in Psalm 23. Otherwise, we won't hear it.
But it's of God, it's of God's hand. And we that have experienced
His grace, have been called to the throne of God by His grace,
confess, the Lord maketh me to do these things. It's His sweet
provision, His spirit, His power that does that for me. And so
the reason why he does it and reveals this salvation to his
people, because according as it's written, he that glorieth,
let him glory in the Lord. And that's what he makes us to
do. When we see Christ and see his work empowering us more and
more, who do we glory in? Not ourselves. We glory in Christ. And we give him all the thanks,
honor, and praise. So the commandment of God to
us is to believe in the faith of Jesus Christ, whom God has
sent. And so we're to believe the faith,
we're to trust the faith of Christ, that Christ's faithfulness has
prevailed and accomplished our redemption. He came and faithfully
fulfilled all that the Father sent him to do, even unto the
cross, the death of the cross, and was raised again for our
justification. justifying and declaring that
He is the Son of God, that He is the Messiah, that He has accomplished
our redemption. And so that's the Word of God,
which is a type in this chapter here. It's the voice of God,
right? The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. Word was made flesh. God was manifest in the flesh. And so the Lord's word was utterly
destroy Amalek. Just wipe them out. It actually
says back in Exodus 17 that the Lord would make war with Amalek
from generation to generation. It's an eternal war. Well, it's
a war as long as this earth goes on. It's a war. between the Lord's
people and that which comes against us. And we fight it, not by flesh
and blood, but by Christ, through Christ. That's how we overcome
that trouble. And so his word is to be believed.
It's to be received. It's not to do what Saul and
the people did, where they chose out for themselves what they
thought was good and rejected the weak things. They applied
God's word when they didn't care about it. When they thought,
well, this is worthless. This is junk. Yeah, let's get
rid of that. They knew it. There was an understanding of
what they did, but it was wicked. And so that's fleshly wisdom. That's carnal wisdom. That's
carnal reasoning to do that. And what does the Lord teach
us? Don't lean on your own understanding. Don't lean on your own wisdom.
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine
own understanding. And all thy ways acknowledge
him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own
eyes. Fear the Lord, and depart from
evil. And so Saul and the people had
this appearance of being obedient to the Lord. They looked like
they were doing it, but they really were doing their own thing.
They were doing what they wanted to do. And so they would go through
the motions, and they clothed what they did in religious ceremonies,
but it missed Christ. It missed Christ. And that's
what we see in religion today. It misses Christ. It has the
appearance of a lot of good things, but they're glorying in the flesh.
and they're taking of the gospel what they want to take, what
seems good to them, and what seems hard to them, they refuse
it. The way the Jews refused Christ
in John chapter 6 and many other, and even at the cross. But they
refused him because they didn't like certain parts of it. And
so there's a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end
thereof is the way of death. We're to hear God's word. God's
word says, obey my commandment, which is obey the gospel, which
is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Christ was not
made to Saul to be his wisdom, that Saul gloried in his own
wisdom. But to you that believe, Christ is the wisdom of God.
That's what he makes Christ to us, the wisdom of God. Next,
God's word tells us. that our Lord is the righteousness
of his people. Christ is your righteousness.
We don't make our own righteousness. Christ is our righteousness.
He has established us in perfect righteousness to God. And so
he's the faithful one. We believe him. It's his righteous
obedience to the Father that has prevailed for us and delivered
us from death and darkness. And so Saul, rather, he justified
himself in his own works. He did not believe God's word. He wasn't obedient to God's word.
Look at verse 13 and 14 of 1 Samuel 15. And Samuel came to Saul,
and Saul said unto him, blessed be thou of the Lord, I have performed
the commandment of the Lord. And Samuel had to ask, but why
do I hear sheep and oxen? bleeding and lowing, right? And so what Saul's doing is he's
calling out, what Samuel's doing is he's calling Saul out and
saying, you say that you're a believer, you say that you've done this,
but your confession, the things that you're saying that I hear
by the bleeding and the lowing of the oxen, I can tell that
it's not according to the word of God. It's not according to
God's word. And when God's child speaks of
what Christ has done for them, they speak of what Christ has
done for them. When we speak of our salvation, we're boasting
of and glorying in the Lord Jesus Christ. But when this world speaks
of their salvation, they tell you of what they did. of when
they gave their heart to Christ or when they heard or when they
did something. It's all about what they did
and the timing of what they did and the experience that got them
saved. And it's all about them rather
than about Christ. And of course, we confess, well,
my part was I'm a sinner. I'm a wicked, vile sinner. And
the Lord crushed me, and the Lord delivered me from that death. Thanks be to God. Christ did
it. Christ saved me. Christ saved
me at the cross. We speak of what He did to save
us. It's not about a specific time, or a specific verse, or
something that man lays hold of and clings to, some experience
that he had. We've had people in our families
and stuff. I remember my grandmother talking
about the wind blowing pages across the Bible and moving it
over here and then she read a verse and it touched her heart, something
like that. That's their hope. It's some kind of religious experience
rather than hoping in the salvation of God. which is his darling
son Jesus Christ, whom he sent to save his people, and boasting
of him. Christ laid down his life. All I know is I'm a sinner.
And I'm a sinner who believes and hopes in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I don't have any other hope now. I just know that I was blind,
but now I see. I was dead to the things of God,
but now I'm alive to the things of God. I love the Lord Jesus
Christ, and that's what he teaches his people. That's what we boast
in, in glory in Christ. The Jews, speaking to Christ
in John 6, 28, said unto him, what shall we do that we might
work the works of God? And Jesus answered and said unto
them, this is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he
has sent. That's obedience to the gospel.
That's obedience to the command of God. Believe on him whom he
sent. And it's God's work in you. You
that believe, it's because God has given you his spirit. and
delivered you from death and darkness and brought you into
the light to see and to acknowledge God has done this in Christ,
by Christ, by his power and his glory. The carnal man speaks
highly of his deeds, and it's just like sheep bleeding and,
you know, saying bye and oxen lowing. That's what you're hearing
when they talk of themselves. It's just what Samuel heard. So Christ's righteousness is
what saves us. We don't go about establishing
our own righteousness. Christ Jesus is our righteousness.
He's obtained it. We don't have anything to boast
in save him. God's word tells us that Jesus
Christ is the sanctification of his people. We're sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. He's our sanctification. But
Saul says that he and the people, they were only trying to improve
what God had told them to do. They heard what God said. They
just wanted to make it a little better. And so Saul was careful
to make sure he brought King Agag to the party. And the people
said, hey, why are you putting that perfectly good sheep to
death? Don't beat them and stab them. Let's keep them, and we'll
sacrifice them to the Lord, and then we'll eat it together afterwards.
We'll have a good time in doing all this. And so that's what
the people did. They were improving, so they
thought, on God's command. They were improvising. In verse
19, wherefore then, Samuel said, didst thou not obey the voice
of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in
the sight of the Lord? He's saying you're taking glory
to yourself rather than glorying in the Lord. You're saying what
God commanded you to do is not sufficient. It somehow comes
short. It somehow misses what he could
have done, and you're going to make it better. Verse 20, And
Saul said unto Samuel, Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord,
and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought
Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. So that's his sanctification.
He's saying, I did do it, I just did it better. I just added a
little flair to it. Just added some flesh to it there. He didn't say it in those words.
And he went on to say, but the people took of the spoil, the
sheep and the oxen, the chief of the things which should have
been utterly destroyed to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal.
We're just doing a little extra. And there's also a sense in there
in which he's pushing off blame onto the people. And sometimes
legalists will do that. I was trying to do God's will,
but everybody else around me wasn't doing God's will, so they
brought me down. That's why I want everybody to
keep the law, like I do, because then we'll all be keeping it
together. They push off blame on everybody
else but they don't trust Christ. They're not hearing God's voice
which is to believe Christ and trust that God will minister
his grace and power in the hearts of his people and that maybe
what you're thinking is your salvation is a lie because Christ
is our salvation. While we spend time justifying
ourselves and sanctifying ourselves, we're not crying out to the Lord
to say, Lord, save me. I'm the vile sinner. I see the
sin just climbing out of my heart. I see it oozing out of my flesh.
Save me, Lord. And so that's why he humbles
us. And that's why he shuts our mouths and does things the way
he does them, which is foolishness to man, because it humbles us
and it brings us to see our need of Christ and to cry for Christ
and to cry for his grace and mercy. So we'll bear fruit, but
it's going to be by our husband, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
how you're going to bear fruit. unto God, not fruit unto death
by the law. Now God's Word tells us that
He has made Christ our redemption. Christ purchased us with His
own blood, which He shed for us on that tree, on the cursed
tree, when He went there as our sacrifice to atone for our sins
and to reconcile us to Holy God. Now look at verse 22, Samuel
said, Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings, and
sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to
obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of
rams. So the folly of man that we see
here in Saul is that he looks at Christ's work. He looks at
what this Bible and Christianity, and he looks at it as just another
form of man's religion to save himself. And so it's just little
pieces of things that he's supposed to believe to get himself saved. And so he goes through. the motions
of religion and he practices it diligently as best as he can
and he thinks that's my righteousness and this is why God will save
me because I came this way and I was pretty good at it, I was
pretty faithful to it and God will accept me and receive me
on this path that I've chosen, this Christianity or Muslim or
Catholic or whatever it is, these vain religions of man. But the
gospel declares that Christ is our salvation. We don't need
to sacrifice to save ourselves. We have a sacrifice. We have the Lamb of God who came
and sacrificed himself. He's our redemption. We don't
redeem ourselves by our works, by our religion. Christ redeemed
us. Christ is all. He's our salvation. And so God has made him our wisdom,
our righteousness, our sanctification, our redemption. Ours is to obey,
to believe God, to trust Him that Christ is everything we
need, to stand before holy God accepted of Him. And we don't
have to be, we are not to be like Saul who trusted his own
wisdom as we saw, who sought out his own righteousness and
his own sanctification and his own sacrifice, his own redemption. And so, hear what the Lord says. Christ is salvation. Obey God's
voice, which is, believe my son. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. Hear him. He is the salvation
of God's people. All who believe him have everlasting
life. They have his spirit. That's
how we believe him. It's by his grace and power to
the glory, praise, and honor of his wonderful name. I pray
he bless that word to your heart's breath. Let's close in prayer
and then be dismissed with a hymn. Our gracious Lord, we thank you
for your grace. We thank you for your word of
salvation, which is revealed and manifested in the face of
Jesus Christ. Lord, help us to hear this word,
not to be Like Saul, Lord, let us deliver us from the flesh,
deliver us from vain carnal reason and wisdom, deliver us from dead
letter religion, and deliver us into the arms of Christ, our
Lord and our Savior. Bring us to Him, help us to hear
His voice, to hear Him speak in our hearts, and to follow
Him all the days of our life. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks, amen.